Ways for People in the Helping Professions to Interact Positively with Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals Who Are Seeking Help

ACTION DIRECTED INWARD (SELF-EDUCATION)

  1. Check into own feelings and thinking about homosexuality and about lesbians, gays, and bisexuals.
  2. Do some reading.
  3. Talk with gays, lesbians, and bisexuals and those who support them. Talk one-to-one and in groups.

ACTION DIRECTED OUTWARD

  1. Provide a supportive environment for your constituents who are or think they may be homosexual. If your setting permits, have gay books and periodicals in view.
  2. Listen to yourself talk. Avoid the use of language that implies that all people are heterosexual and "single, married, or divorced."
  3. Remember that other workers at your workplace may be gay. Think about monitoring your language accordingly.
  4. If students/staff at your workplace fill out forms, use your influence to help create forms with language that follows guideline #2 above.
  5. Advocate and participate in education for your fellow workers so that gay students/staff receive service without prejudices - rather, help your team or staff provide service with the acceptance, empathy, and warmth deserved by all persons in need.
  6. Do not presume that all gay students/staff are unhappy about their orientation.
  7. Do not presume that all who try to change their orientation can do so.
  8. Remember that people do not choose to have gay feelings. People can choose whether to act or not on these feelings.
  9. Remember that "homosexual", "transvestite", and "transsexual" refer to differing sets of feelings and behaviors.
  10. Remember that societal oppression creates much of the unhappiness of gay people.
  11. Remember that many homosexual relationships fail because such relationships receive no societal support - rather, every effort is made to destroy such unions.
  12. Remember that the oppression visited on lesbians differs from the oppression that gay men undergo.
  13. Help your students/staff get in touch with their feelings and thoughts. Help them define their problems, goals, approaches to goals, action plans.
  14. Help your students/staff help themselves. Help them increase their sense of self- reliance and self-worth so that they can take charge of their own lives and integrate their feelings/thinking/behavior in a positive way.
  15. Know when your competence reaches its limit. Then, refer your students/staff elsewhere if need be.
  16. Know when any negative feelings you may have toward gay people prevents you from offering unbiased help. Then, refer your client elsewhere.
  17. Acquaint yourself with referral sources in your area, and with supportive Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual networks - get a copy of the "Gay Yellow Pages", Renaissance House, Box 292, Village Station, NY, NY 10014.
  18. Help work for the human and civil rights of gay people, to create a more positive environment for us all.

Source: ACUHO-I; Gay Awareness in Residence Halls, 1981.